SECOND PERIOD.
CHAPTER I.
Periods of Literary Success and National Glory. — Charles the Fifth. — Hopes of Universal Empire. — Luther. — Contest of the Romish Church with Protestantism. — Protestant Books. — The Inquisition. — Index Expurgatorius. — Suppression of Protestantism in Spain. — Persecution. — Religious Condition of the Country and its Effects.
In every country that has yet obtained a rank among those nations whose intellectual cultivation is the highest, the period in which it has produced the permanent body of its literature has been that of its glory as a state. The reason is obvious. There is then a spirit and activity abroad among the elements that constitute the national character, which naturally express themselves in such poetry and eloquence as, being the result of the excited condition of the people and bearing its impress, become for all future exertions a model and standard that can be approached only when the popular character is again stirred by a similar enthusiasm. Thus, the age of Pericles naturally followed the great Persian war; the age of Augustus was that of a universal tranquillity produced by universal conquest; the age of Molière and La Fontaine was that in which Louis the Fourteenth was carrying the outposts of his consolidated monarchy far into Germany; and the ages of Elizabeth and Anne were the ages of the Armada and of Marlborough.
Just so it was in Spain. The central point in Spanish history is the capture of Granada. During nearly eight centuries before that decisive event, the Christians of the Peninsula were occupied with conflicts at home, that gradually developed their energies, amidst the sternest trials and struggles, till the whole land was filled to overflowing with a power which had hardly yet been felt in the rest of Europe. But no sooner was the last Moorish fortress yielded up, than this accumulated flood broke loose from the mountains behind which it had so long been hidden, and threatened, at once, to overspread the best portions of the civilized world. In less than thirty years, Charles the Fifth, who had inherited, not only Spain, but Naples, Sicily, and the Low Countries, and into whose treasury the untold wealth of the Indies was already beginning to pour, was elected Emperor of Germany, and undertook a career of foreign conquest such as had not been imagined since the days of Charlemagne. Success and glory seemed to wait for him as he advanced. In Europe, he extended his empire, till it checked the hated power of Islamism in Turkey; in Africa, he garrisoned Tunis and overawed the whole coast of Barbary; in America, Cortés and Pizarro were his bloody lieutenants, and achieved for him conquests more vast than were conceived in the dreams of Alexander; while, beyond the wastes of the Pacific, he stretched his discoveries to the Philippines, and so completed the circuit of the globe.
This was the brilliant aspect which the fortunes of his country offered to an intelligent and imaginative Spaniard in the first half of the sixteenth century.[741] For, as we well know, such men then looked forward with confidence to the time when Spain would be the head of an empire more extensive than the Roman, and seem sometimes to have trusted that they themselves should live to witness and share its glory. But their forecast was imperfect. A moral power was at work, destined to divide Europe anew, and place the domestic policy and the external relations of its principal countries upon unwonted foundations. The monk Luther was already become a counterpoise to the military master of so many kingdoms; and from 1552, when Moritz of Saxony deserted the Imperial standard, and the convention of Passau asserted for the Protestants the free exercise of their religion, the clear-sighted conqueror may himself have understood, that his ambitious hopes of a universal empire, whose seat should be in the South of Europe and whose foundations should be laid in the religion of the Church of Rome, were at an end.
But the question, where the line should be drawn between the great contending parties, was long the subject of fierce wars. The struggle began with the enunciation of Luther’s ninety-five propositions, and his burning the Pope’s bulls at Wittenberg. It was ended, as far as it is yet ended, by the peace of Westphalia. During the hundred and thirty years that elapsed between these two points, Spain was indeed far removed from the fields where the most cruel battles of the religious wars were fought; but how deep was the interest the Spanish people took in the contest is plain from the bitterness of their struggle against the Protestant princes of Germany; from the vast efforts they made to crush the Protestant rebellion in the Netherlands; from the expedition of the Armada against Protestant England; and from the interference of Philip the Second in the affairs of Henry the Third and Henry the Fourth, when, during the League, Protestantism seemed to be gaining ground in France;—in short, it may be seen from the presence of Spain and her armies in every part of Europe, where it was possible to reach and assail the great movement of the Reformation.
Those, however, who were so eager to check the power of Protestantism when it was afar off would not be idle when the danger drew near to their own homes.[742] The first alarm seems to have come from Rome. In March, 1521, Papal briefs were sent to Spain, warning the Spanish government to prevent the further introduction of books written by Luther and his followers, which, it was believed, had been secretly penetrating into the country for about a year. These briefs, it should be observed, were addressed to the civil administration, which still, in form at least, kept an entire control over such subjects. But it was more natural, and more according to the ideas then prevalent in other countries as well as in Spain, to look to the ecclesiastical power for remedies in a matter connected with religion; and the great body of the Spanish people seems willingly to have done so. In less than a month, therefore, from the date of the briefs in question, and perhaps even before they were received in Spain, the Grand Inquisitor addressed an order to the tribunals under his jurisdiction, requiring them to search for and seize all books supposed to contain the doctrines of the new heresy. It was a bold measure, but it was a successful one.[743] The government gladly countenanced it; for, in whatever form Protestantism appeared, it came with more or less of the spirit of resistance to all the favorite projects of the Emperor; and the people countenanced it, because, except a few scattered individuals, all true Spaniards regarded Luther and his followers with hardly more favor than they did Mohammed or the Jews.
Meantime, the Supreme Council, as the highest body in the Inquisition was called, proceeded in their work with a firm and equal step. By successive decrees, between 1521 and 1535, it was ordained, that all persons who kept in their possession books infected with the doctrines of Luther, and even all who failed to denounce such persons, should be excommunicated and subjected to degrading punishments. This gave the Inquisition a right to inquire into the contents and character of whatever books were already printed. Next, they arrogated to themselves the power to determine what books might be sent to the press; claiming it gradually and with little noise, but effectually,[744] and if, at first, without any direct grant of authority from the Pope or from the king of Spain, still necessarily with the implied assent of both, and generally with means furnished by one or the other. At last, a sure expedient was found, which left no doubt of the process to be used, and very little as to the results that would follow.